The Silver Centurion just hacked his way through three dwarves. Something tells me the next four in line won’t fair any better…also from the look of it the savage races don’t seem to have a front line hero to take him on.

So this Silver Centurion isn’t using sparkly light weapons in pitched battle. Commence speculation on whether it’s because A) it tricky to do and being on a horse doesn’t help, B) its a tactical decision to avoid drawing too much attention too early, or C) this is a different Silver Centurion who isn’t also a crusader. Or others!

I suspect that the Humans, etc sallied forth so quickly, that the Savages didn’t have enough time to get into formation. Or maybe the Savages decided on a different plan? Maybe the Hammertanks are going to start flanking.

This would mean that the Gastonians were sitting around in formation long before the Savage Races even mobilized, though.

On the Gastonian side, I’m going to assume that the multiple phalanxes in back are the “real” front line, while the guys who ran ahead are working to break/prevent the enemy formation, before retreating behind the shield wall. The Savage races who ran ahead are attempting to do the same while the Hammertanks (and the formation presumably offscreen and behind them) are getting into position.

I have absolutely no idea what purpose the Autolancers are supposed to serve (mostly because I don’t know how they work; area denial for the Hammertanks maybe?), nor why the musket-gnomes are charging along the front lines (except perhaps the fact that they are too short to fire OVER their allies’ heads), nor where any archers on either side are hanging out.

In World of Warcraft PvP matches, there are defined win conditions–like “capture the enemy flag three times,” or, “Hold the majority of the five bases for long enough to score enough points to win.”

The vast majority of each team, every time, seems to ignore them in favor of randomly brawling with the opposed team in the middle of the field, far away from anything that actually matters to the outcome of the match. Though, to be fair, from a distance (like, if you’re actually guarding your flag, or guarding one of the bases which you team holds), it can be hard to tell the difference between “running to midfield and randomly brawling” and “trying to get to a base to attack it and getting knocked off my mount.”

Reference to DotA / League of Legends, where mid lane is the middle of the map and the shortest route between the two teams’ bases – so when you’re trying to end the game one strategy is to group up and push down that lane.

Of course, sometimes people take it a bit too far and do nothing but blindly charge down mid lane, ignoring the rest of the map (top, bot, objectives like monsters that give you a pile of gold or personal buffs).

MechWarriorOnline, where people, no matter if the objective is “Capture the enemy base” or “Hold cap points to get resources”, everyone always heads out in a big clump straight through the middle of the map (usually called Theta) and starts brawling.

It’s good in SMITE’s Arena mode! All the important things happen in the middle, but there are goodies to the sides that people constantly get tempted by.

Beroli’s is probably the reference actually being made here. (Also the oldest among them.) The specific terminology of “fighting at mid” was generally used in Warsong Gulch, the capture-the-flag battleground; other BGs had specific names for the middle.

Not saying they’re a useful invention, but if I had those things, and needed to figure out how to best use them, I would probably set them up exactly like that. Put them behind the infantry and in front of the archers, and not move them forward. They are obviously ineffective against individual soldiers, but they would work extremely well as a mobile spiked barricade to stop the giant enemy robotanks. And since they don’t require trained soldiers, just any farmer who can push a cart, they aren’t diverting any of your human resources from other places.

But still, if this is near the capital city of Gastonia (I’m not sure exactly where this battle is taking place), you’d think they’d have ballistae instead. Which are basically the same thing as this, except you can shoot that oversized lance out like an arrow and then load a new one in its place.

Actually… maybe that’s *exactly* what these are. Maybe the gnomes made them some tiny ballistae the size of fruit carts, capable of being pushed by only two people.

… Speaking of which. Did you notice that the only ranged units (the gnomes) are charging in the first line? And there do not appear to be any ranged units at all? Maybe there was a prelude to the battle that we did not see, but still!

Outside of a game, this is the stupidest way to fight a medieval battle when there’s a bloody fortification there! The Gastonians should not have sortied outside their walls, instead they should be raining fire on the hapless attackers from the relative safety of the parapets. Preferably with staff slings and ballistae both throwing flammables if possible. Archers at the ready for the aerial units. Only sortie to break the enemies
lines, destroy their engines, or to finish them off. (sorry, never played WOW or the like, just an old D&D gamer who is also a military historian)

Do you see those hammer tanks? Could you imagine what those would do to the walls of the Gastonian fort? They have to be stopped before they reach those walls, just like in all those ‘defend the fort’ games.

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